AKA Responds To Dana White’s ‘Stone Age’ Criticism

On Monday, UFC president Dana White told Setana Sports that American Kickboxing Academy (AKA) needed to move out of the “stone ages” and into modern-day methods of training.

The issue was brought up because reigning UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez (pictured) has seemingly been injured more than healthy the past several years.

“Some of the camps are still in the stone ages and need to be brought up to date,” White said. “AKA is one of those places. You’ve got Cain Velasquez, our heavyweight champion, who’s always hurt. Those guys go to war every day.

“He’s training for a fight and he’s going to war with Daniel Cormier every day,” said White. “That’s not how it’s done. Not anymore. We need to educate a lot more.”

It didn’t take long for the San Jose, California-based gym to catch wind of White’s remarks. Velasquez, for one, says he’s not planning on changing his training methods because the best way to prepare for a scrap is to scrap.

“You know what, I’ve always considered this gym as an old school gym,” Velasquez told MMAFighting.com. “He says stone age, I say old school.

“The best way to prepare for a fight is to fight. Yeah, I’ve had some injuries. But when we fight, nobody says we’re not training right when they look at the way we fight. We’re going to keep doing it. We could get injured again, but you don’t come into training with those thoughts. I don’t go in thinking about getting injured. We go to work, beat each other up, just like a fight. We don’t go into a fight with those thoughts either.”

AKA coach Javier Mendez says he appreciates White’s criticism because it brings attention to their injury situation. Mendez is aware of their injury rate and is always looking for better ways to keep his guys healthy.

Without question, when Velasquez is healthy he’s the division’s baddest mofo. The problem is, he’s seemingly injured more than not since initially capturing the crown in October 2010.

The 32-year-old has only fought six times since blasting Brock Lesnar due to various injuries. Velasquez hasn’t been seen since steamrolling Junior dos Santos for the second time in October 2013.

Velasquez’s propensity to get hurt got so bad that the UFC was forced to manufacture an interim title, which Fabricio Werdum gladly collected by beating Mark Hunt in November.

Velasquez and Werdum look to unify the heavyweight crown at UFC 188. However, a lot can happen between now and June 13, if you know what I mean…